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Asked by Superstar_FIFI to Adam, Emily, Thad, Thomas on 13 Mar 2015.
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Thomas Clements answered on 13 Mar 2015:
Good question and very tough to answer. The right answer is: we don’t know.
The most likely causes is that the ape ancestor we had probably had a few key traits necessary, which could develop due to natural selection:
1. An ability to expand brain size. This sounds silly but we have massive brains, so without the ability to evolve a skull that can facilitate a brain as complex as ours, it wouldn’t have happened. More importantly that skull size is the ability to give birth to babies with big heads! This was a really important step in ape like animals becoming hominids.
2. An ability to communicate. Evolving the ability to speak really set us apart from other ape like animals because then we can hunt more effectively as well as defend ourselves from threats, meaning that we are more likely to produce offspring and pass on our genes.
3. The ability to become bipedal (stand on two feet and walk). This is important because it meant we could run fast and increase the area of our territory, effectively making us more effecting hunters.
4. The ability to change our environments. Evolutionary, you have a better chance of survival if you can twist the environment into making life easier for you. For example, making a spear or a tool makes it safer to hunt than using your bare hands on an antelope! Recent studies suggest that humans abilities to throw accurately is an important evolutionary step because it assists hunting safely. The invention of fire, farming and clothes are more examples because they made it easier to survive.
There are many other factors why we came from ape like animals and importantly it’s not one of these things but all of them together!
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Thaddeus Aid answered on 14 Mar 2015:
Hi!
The simple answer is that we know we are most closely related to apes because of the way they look and the DNA evidence. we share something like 96% of our DNA with chimpanzees and bonobos! So we know that we descended from a common ancestor with apes because of this.
Humans and apes share a common ancestor. This means that millions of years ago in the past there was a species that gave rise both to us and to the apes. For instance 6 million years ago we split from the Chimpanzees and Bonobos. So for the past 6 million years the Chimpanzees have taken a different evolutionary path than we have. So they have a bunch of different mutations than we do including we had two chromosomes join into one so we have less chromosomes than chimpanzees do. This is why chimpanzees cannot become humans, they don’t have the right mutations. However this also means that humans can’t evolve into chimpanzees because we don’t have the right number of chromosomes or the right mutations.
But did you know that chimpanzees can learn sign language? It is true! They are so closely related to us that they can learn how to communicate with us using sign language! Check out this chimpanzee, Washoe, for some awesome details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_%28chimpanzee%29Washoe even taught another chimpanzee how to use sign language!
There is a less well known group of apes called the bonobos (who are very cool) who are an offshoot of chimpanzees (so they are just as related to us as chimpanzees are) and they have learned some amazing stuff. Kanzi the bonobo can make and use stone tools! Just like a cave man!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PljsEwjGSn0Kanzi can even use fire and roast marshmellows!
Then there is another bonobo that can drive!
http://www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/bonobo/But what would it be like if we evolved from another animal? We wouldn’t look like humans, we would look like another species. If we evolved from dogs we may look like:
If we evolved from cheetahs maybe we would look like
If we evolved from lizards maybe we would look like:
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